Love Notes in Literature
by Against the Evening Sky
Summary: A tale of purloined laundry, provoked Literature teachers, and passionately uttered vocalizations of "Der-ek!" DerekCasey.


**Title:** Love Notes in Literature  
><strong>Fandom: <strong>Life with Derek  
><strong>Pairing:<strong> DerekCasey  
><strong>Summary:<strong> A tale of purloined laundry, provoked Literature teachers, and passionately uttered vocalizations of "Der-_ek_!"  
><strong>Disclaimer:<strong> I don't own _Life with Derek._ And this disclaimer thing is getting _really _old.

_Chapter One_

The music fades in like a dream. It echoes and floats, and it's haunting but _beautiful_. That's what has always troubled her about music. It's one of the only things that can be so gorgeous and so _bleak _at the same time.

She's bleak today too, but certainly not beautiful—not wearing her stepbrother's clothes and deodorant, bare of any makeup.

Casey is what her mother calls her. Her father used to call her Case. _He _calls her Klutzilla or Spacey or whatever other offensive slur he nominates for use that day—"_he" _being Derek Venturi, the hooligan stepbrother himself.

The melody is coming from the very subtle headphones dangling around his neck, surely loud enough for the teacher to hear—especially when the Linkin Park-esque piano intro transforms into raucous, heavy metal tomfoolery. The musical red herring saddens her. For a moment, she had actually thought he had _taste_. But alas...

Mr. Jennings doesn't stop his spiel on Nathaniel Hawthorne's magnum opus, showcasing yet another disgusting display of sexist favoritism. It's that, or their English teacher has given up on Derek.

She favors the first. It's far more dramatic.

Derek is what her stepdad, George, deems "a work in progress." He has good intentions—_sometimes—_but he doesn't care to use them. If people didn't like it, that was their problem. Or—in Casey's case—_her_ problem.

"Thoughts?" Mr. Jennings asks, eyebrow raised, poising himself to call on some unsuspecting, unprepared student.

Casey's hand shoots into the air before he can do so.

"Personally, I think Hester's struggle was entirely unnecessary. She'd been made to believe she was abandoned in the midst of an already weak marriage. I don't understand how she was at fault for moving on."

She hears a snort from an adjacent desk.

"Other than the fact she got it on with a priest?" Derek drawls, drawing laughs from the few students bothering to listen to the discussion at all.

"Dimmesdale was a willing participant, which you would know if you had bothered to read the _book, _rather than skimming the SparkNotes. Refusing to take responsibility for his actions only showcased the astounding selfishness and immaturity found in the average male," she said, glaring pointedly in his direction. _A pause._ "No offense, Mr. Jennings."

Their teacher frowns slightly. "None taken."

Derek grins at his befuddlement. He's not the first to be confused by his stepsister's rants on the social injustices found in _The Scarlet Letter_.

"Wow, Spacey," Derek says. "Your crazy, feminine bullshit goes back that far, huh?"

Mr. Jennings lets out a loud sigh, feeling as though he's said the coming words a thousand times. In reality, he just hit the five hundred mark last week. "Please be respectful, Mr. Venturi."

The aforementioned boy smirks. "I will, if she will. But honestly, Mr. Jennings, just look at her...she keeps stealing my clothes while I'm sleeping. I'm trying to be nice, but it's getting a bit creepy..."

Derek feels it. Mental breakdown in...

3...

2...

1...

"It's called _reciprocity_, you buffoon!" she shrieks, pointing a finger dangerously close to his eye. "You stole my clothes, I steal yours!"

Derek guffaws.

Mr. Jennings, admitting defeat, ignores the stepsiblings, and continues on with his lecture. The trouble with such a concession, of course, is that Casey is left to fend for herself while her teacher throws the towel in.

Derek is pelting her with wadded up pieces of paper she doesn't bother to fish out of her tangled, messy hair. They remain there until she scurries out of the classroom—desperately attempting to both arrive to her next class on time, and disregard her stepbrother's existence at once—and they fall out, landing unceremoniously on the floor near the exit.

The eldest Venturi child swaggers out after her idly, not—unsurprising—stopping to pick up the paper littering the ground.

But Mr. Jennings does, after everyone has exited.

He doesn't know why, but he doesn't toss it away immediately as perhaps he should have. Instead, he opens the crumpled paper somewhat inappropriately and certainly curiously.

There, in Derek's lazy scrawl, are the words that can change everything.

Any _I love you_ from Derek should ostensibly be a prank. But as Mr. Jenning's eyes scan over the sacred words, for some reason, he doesn't think so.

He smiles into his empty classroom.


End file.
